


Somewhat Restricted, One Might Say

by thetreesgrowodd



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Bromance, Captivity, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nudity, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock fails to return from a mysterious trip abroad, John goes to rescue him. <i>With an army.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhat Restricted, One Might Say

"His movement is _somewhat restricted_ , one might say," Mycroft had told John a few days after Sherlock failed to return from his trip abroad.

"Yes, but what does that mean, exactly?" John asked.

"There's a bit of a fuss going on between the government and a rebel group, so the borders are closed, pending further developments."

Had John worried at that point? Yes, but he'd imagined Sherlock sitting in some hostel or embassy, driving anyone unfortunate enough to be there with him up the wall. Maybe not a first class hotel, but the situation was nothing more than an inconvenience, certainly.

Several days with no news stretched into a fortnight with no news. Then, abruptly, began the stream of postcards with their simple, cheery messages, and the one phone call on a staticy landline in which Sherlock had mostly ranted about how John should not forget to feed his tropical fish and to send Aunt Shirley a jumper for her birthday and put his name on the card. Mycroft had deciphered the codes. Sherlock's situation was alarming. And signs pointed to it worsening.

But now, after weeks had crawled by while Mycroft manipulated strings and remained infuriatingly nonchalant, John is here. 'Here' is an underground compound with the rebel coup being waged above. 'Here' is where Mycroft's best intelligence have said Sherlock is. 'Here' is about as far from John's imaginary hotel with its thin blankets, lukewarm showers, and a complete lack of proper tea and biscuits as one could get.

There. In the far cell. A thin, naked man, so pale his skin seems to glow in the dim light.

John's soldier allies check the room and find it clear. Satisfied that any guards had left during the initial attack — either because they had fled or had gone upstairs to help fight — the soldiers look to John to do his part in the operation.

So John approaches the cell. The man inside is sitting on a crate, his dark, straggly hair over his eyes, a wild beard obscuring the rest of his face. His hands are chained above him with just enough slack for him to sit down — but only just — and he must have had to sleep leaning into the corner. The floor is vile — no arrangements had been made to deal with sewage, obviously.

John is so calm. But his heart is a wild creature in his rib cage. The man in the cell stands up stiffly and thrusts his hands through the bars toward John. The soldiers raise their guns in response, but the prisoner isn't groping, isn't attacking. Just reaching.

John gets lightheaded. He isn't sure if he would give everything he has for this to be Sherlock... or if he would give everything he has for this _not_ to be Sherlock. Their eyes meet and hold.

John takes one of the hands. The pulse at the wrist is racing.

This is Sherlock. _Oh Jesus, this is Sherlock_. The man is cursed with a distinctive face, one which John has seen under so many disguises — how could he not know it? But his visual identification isn't enough. He and Mycroft had discussed this scenario so many times, set their plan and precautions. There is gunfire somewhere above them. The soldiers are looking at John expectantly.

"Sherlock," John begins. "Listen carefully. We have to confirm your identity. I'm going to ask you some questions."

Oh God, please let Sherlock bite back with some retort. Let him berate them for their caution, let him insult John's intelligence for not trusting his own eyes. But the man in the cell — Sherlock — only makes a rusty grunt. John notices his pupils not reacting normally to the torch. He discreetly shines it into the crook of Sherlock's arm and sees marks there. He hopes the drugs won't hinder Sherlock too badly in these critical moments.

"How many stairs are there between the ground floor and our rooms on Baker Street?" The question — and asking it of a man in this condition — feels absurd.

"Sev-seventeen," he replies in a raspy voice.

"I keep a bowl on top of the refrigerator. What kind of animal is painted on that bowl?"

"None. No animal. Leaves. Trick question. Moldy oranges inside. Sometimes you throw them out and put pears in to go moldy."

"It's him," John says. "It's him. Get him out." He has more questions prepared, but to hell with it.

The soldiers get to work on the lock as efficiently as if they did this daily. It takes less than a minute to get it open. But a long, long minute, with Sherlock grasping at John's hands as if the men intend to separate them rather than reunite them. Sherlock's eyes are wide, his breathing fast. He's continuing to rattle off random bits of trivia about their home life.

"Lestrade gave you a tie for Christmas. Tacky. Purple. No pattern, until the gravy spots. Asymmetrical. Mrs. Hudson took Tai Chi. Won't carry her mobile. Instructor says it disrupts chi. Pah! January. Spoonful of cough syrup. Abominable. Spat it out. Prefer the cough."

John whispers meaningless, comforting things all the while. The door is opened, the chain is cut and Sherlock is freed. Loosening his and John's hands takes longer.

Sherlock stands outside of the breeched cell, wobbly and confused, soldiers holding each elbow. The manacles will have to be removed later. Speed is more important now.

"Sorry I didn't bring you anything better than this," John says, shrugging off his own jacket. He drapes it over Sherlock's shoulders. It's too short to do much good, but the other option — tying it around his waist, apron-style — would just be undignified. Sherlock is in no condition to make a decision about it, so John leaves it.

They hurry up the stairs and down a hall. Sherlock can't keep up this pace for long, not even with two men supporting him, but they don't have far to go. The solider in the lead drags a bloody body out of their path. They pass it, but Sherlock twists to look back at it. "Multiple gunshot wounds," he mumbles.

At the door, their transport pulls up. They get Sherlock inside, and John barely has his back foot off the ground before they're moving. He collapses into a rear-facing seat and watches their escorts rush back into the building to help in the battle that's still being waged.

John turns to Sherlock, their knees brushing. Sherlock stares out the window, sitting straight and regal as a king, wearing the jacket as an elegant garment.

"Sherlock? I'm going to check you for injury, alright?" John scoots forward and checks Sherlock's limbs with his hands and eyes. Then over his ribs, up his neck, and around Sherlock's head, checking for trauma. "Are you in any pain? Have you had any injuries while you were there?" 

"No."

John thumbs the marks in Sherlock's elbow. "Any idea what they gave you?"

"Concoctions to loosen my tongue. They didn't work."

"I'd have come for you sooner, you know. Mycroft talked me out of it several times." John keeps his tone light. "He set all of this up. Made me wait for the uprising to begin in ernest, then slip in and out in the chaos. That's what all this is about. Sorry to say, we didn't just start a war to save you."

"Yes I know. The river is running the other way." Sherlock smirks, still looking out the window. John thinks he's mad for a second, until he sees the stream of vehicles full of soldiers going toward the military compound they've just left.

They arrive at the base and John asks one of the uniformed men who greet them to bring something to cover Sherlock up with. But Sherlock simply steps down from the vehicle with a terse, "Don't be ridiculous, John. They're just genitals, not classified documents."

"Oh, fine. Then get me something to get these manacles off!"

Sherlock is too filthy to enter the sterile area, so John gets him straight into the clinic's shower, throwing the jacket aside. There is a shower chair inside, and Sherlock slumps onto it, and John is reminded of how he sat in his cell.

John turns on the water. It's a soft spray, and it's barely what you'd call warm, just like bathing a child. John has rolled up his sleeves and pulled on disposable gloves, but neglected his waterproof smock. His shirt gets wet, but he doesn't care.

Sherlock fades into exhausted unresponsiveness as John bathes him. Maybe the shower cubicle has triggered the memory of his cell. The water going down the drain doesn't get lighter than the color of weak tea the entire time. When John proposes shaving Sherlock's head to deal with the lice and mats and dirt in one fell swoop, Sherlock doesn't even complain, let alone protest, and John worries about this lack of reaction while he shaves off Sherlock's hair, beard, and all of his body hair. Sherlock is not a vain man, but is normally very particular about some things.

Men in uniform arrive with some heavy duty tools then, and John gets Sherlock out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist and sits him down. While they work on getting the restraints off, John cleans out the shower, picks the jacket up, and mops up the water Sherlock dripped. Just like normal, actually.

When the manacles come off, they take a layer of dead skin with them, and John feels a jolt of something like panic when he thinks of how long they must have been on.

They get Sherlock into a gown, take x-rays, rush blood samples off for analysis, and get him settled into a bed with an IV in his arm just before the first wave of injured soldiers comes in. The waves keep coming in throughout the rest of the day and into the night. John is constantly needed, constantly dealing with a crisis, but also constantly aware of that bed in the corner, as if it's the only heat source in a cold room. Sherlock is surprisingly silent but sometimes when John glances over he finds Sherlock's eyes on him.

Things continue much the same for a few days. John runs on catnaps and coffee, and kindles a hope that a sense of relief at Sherlock being alive will hit him eventually, once he has a moment to breathe.

Sherlock stays in bed but makes a fuss if any of the other medics attempt to do anything for him. Mostly he dozes. Sleep falls on him like a smothering weight, one which he thrashes and struggles to throw off.

Some soldiers talk about the brother of a high-ranking official who was rescued as part of a secret mission. Some rumors call him a genius, others a madman. John sees Sherlock sitting in his bed, eyes shut, miming playing his violin with great gusto and — not for the first time — understands their confusion.

English officials turn up to talk to Sherlock, and John watches protectively. Sherlock deals with them calmly and reasonably and offers to make a written report. He spends most of the day on it, then proudly hands it over. They're furious to discover that he's written a story — a work of children's fiction, apparently. Sherlock doesn't even try to pretend it doesn't contain a code, just asks them to not let their futile attempts at deciphering it delay its delivery to Mycroft.

Near dawn the next day, fresh medical staff arrives. There are fewer injured coming in as well — the coup has been swift, decisive. The old government — weak, corrupted and panicky enough to throw a foreigner into a medieval dungeon on a mere hunch that he was a spy — had been ready to fall, and the worst of the fighting is over. John is excused for the rest of the day. He goes to check in with Sherlock, ignoring the irrational, melancholy sensation that if he lets him out of his sight, he'll lose him again.

"Get me out of here," Sherlock says, rapid-fire, before John can even open his mouth. "You're obviously returning to the room they assigned you, and that room is obviously a double, intended for us to share, and as space is at quite a premium, and this bed is needed, and you know I'm well enough to go, and _I can't stay here any longer — take me with you."_

John just nods. Sherlock has a lot of recovery ahead of him still, but he's well enough to leave for a while. He makes a few quick notes to Sherlock's chart. They walk slowly to the room together, Sherlock moving stiffly and John weaving with tiredness.

John closes the door behind him and realizes that all at once his plan is over. He no longer has a script to work from. He has actually never imagined the scenario from this point on, couldn't allow his mind to get this far beyond the initial crisis. He looks at Sherlock, at a loss.

Someone has found clothes in Sherlock's size and he is putting them on, dropping the hospital gown where he stands, not even turning his back for privacy. John rushes around tidying up the room, though it hardly needs it. It's just two narrow beds.

Without speaking, Sherlock pulls the covers off of one of the beds and makes a nest on the floor in a corner of the room. He takes his time making himself comfortable, wrapping the blanket around himself in a fussy way.

"Missing something," Sherlock mutters, looking around the room. "John."

"Yes? What do you need?" John asks, coming nearer.

"John," Sherlock repeats, holding out his arm, a corner of the blanket clutched in his hand. John isn't really sure he's understood until he sits down in the nest and Sherlock rewraps both of them and settles John against him.

A few minutes ago, John thought he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a bed and sleep, but now he wants this, just to stay like this. The realization that Sherlock is alive, safe, and here hits him all at once, and he leans heavily into Sherlock, hiding his face and hoping it looks like exhaustion instead of emotion.

"Did you know I was scheduled for execution?" Sherlock asks.

John feels a surge of adrenaline, but calmly says, "Oh? For when?"

"Hmm. Not sure. I lost track of the days in there," Sherlock lies.

"They won't be able to treat anyone like that again."

"No, they certainly won't."

John thinks of the spy rumors and Mycroft's vague intelligence reports and the bland post cards and the timing of the rebel coup. There's a domino effect to the events, but John's mind is too tired to think about it.

"When I sleep, I'm back there," Sherlock says. "The illusion is nearly perfect. Am I there, dreaming that I'm here, or _here_ dreaming that I'm _there_?"

"Sherlock..."

"But when I find myself here, I look at you. 'Is John more real than the bars and the darkness?' I ask myself. The answer has never failed to be yes." Sherlock says, and John can feel his voice rumbling in his chest. "In all the time I've known you, it has never failed to be yes."


End file.
